A Day at the Beach
by RenShep
Summary: MacCready hates the ocean. Rated M for language only.


**I brought MacCready to help me clear out the lighthouse in the game. He definitely does not appreciate the ocean going by a few of his comments. This got me thinking... and this quick little drabble is the result. Might turn into part of a larger work later on. But for now, enjoy!**

RJ MacCready sat on a bench overlooking the ocean, smoking a stale cigarette and wishing he had another pair of socks with him. Sand had worked its way through the holes in his boots, so not only were his feet wet, they were wet and gritty. Not to mention cold.

He never understood the allure of the sea. He'd read about it as a kid, and an adult for that matter, what books he could that weren't completely destroyed. The ocean was a fairly common theme in many, and mentioned in many more. He suspected few people, including his boss, realized just how well read he was. There wasn't much entertainment to be had these days, and despite being raised by other kids, he had been educated enough to pick up a novel and not have to sound out the words. They had a lot of books laying around Little Lamplight, a few of them even had all their pages.

One of these days he was going to learn how _Don Quixote_ ended and how _Crime and Punishment_ began.

He was about nineteen the first time he saw the ocean, running as an extra pair of eyes for a caravan from Rivet City. Lucy had been pregnant with Duncan at the time and he'd hated to leave her, but they needed the caps and there hadn't been much of a choice. He'd been about as impressed with it as he was now. That is to say, not at all. The shoreline stank of rot, the wind off the water was cold, and the fucking birds shat on everything. Good source of protein though.

The birds, not the shit.

 _"How gladly does the spirit leap forth, and suddenly enlarge its sense of being to the full extent of the broad, blue, sunny deep!"_

 _Fuck you and your lies, Hawthorne,_ he thought to himself miserably as he pulled his jacket a tighter around himself, not that he'd ever get warm with wet feet.

The water actually more greenish grey than blue, and his spirit was currently huddled in a ball, feeling small, somewhat helpless and trying not to puke.

 _"The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea,_ " he said to one of the gulls perched on the railing, punctuating the quote with a sharp laugh, though the sound was swallowed by the incessant wind and waves. "James Joyce," he finished quietly, unable to muster the energy to fight the wind with his voice.

Scrotumtightening was right. At the very least stomach turning. Though that had little to do with the location and more to do with rad sickness. He could have done with two doses of Rad-Away, but the boss needed one, too, and they didn't have any extras to spare. She probably would have given him her share if she had known just how sick he was with it. She was like that, the boss.

He sighed miserably again. Her selflessness was going to get her killed someday. He hoped he wasn't around to see it.

He wouldn't have taken the Rad-Away from her if she offered, despite the fact that he was anything but selfless, since he knew that she needed it just as badly. And well, he liked the boss, she was by far the best he'd ever had, despite her questionable judgement at times. She was a genuinely decent person too, a rare thing in this world, and the last thing he wanted was for her to die because of his selfishness. He had enough regrets already. Besides, he would survive, at least for a few days. By then they'd run into someone to sell them a few more treatments, or at least scrounge some up off a corpse somewhere.

It was all because of those Child of Atom assholes. He hated those fuckers, they were just as bad as any raider or gunner, only a fuckton more crazy, and those goddamned gamma guns of theirs made him feel far more nervous than bullets zipping by his head. Actually, if he really wanted to place blame where it belonged, it was all because of Garvey and his pathetic wastelanders who were too hapless to help themselves. _Well fuck you, too, Garvey._ He was the one who should be out here doing this shit, not her. Nora had more important things to worry about, like finding her son and... well, surviving until she did.

He still couldn't quite believe his luck in coming into her employ. Over the past two, two and a half years his luck had gone from bad, to unfuckingbelievably worse. Whether it was karma biting him in the ass or just life in this fucking wasteland he didn't know, but he was nearing the end of his rope when she showed up waving a lifeline. It wasn't even just that he had a good paying job with a person who didn't, for once, expect him to kill indiscriminately. She helped him, too. She put her life on the line to get the cure for Duncan. He didn't even ask for her help, she just... offered.

In doing so she'd saved the life of his son, and he'd be damned if he left her side until he helped her do the same for hers.

He wanted to go back to the Capitol Wasteland, head home to Duncan now that he was on the road to recovery. Six months ago he would have, without a single twinge of guilt he'd leave Nora in the lurch and not look back.

Things were different now. She wasn't just his employer, she was his friend, his _good_ friend, and that wasn't anything he ever expected to find in the Commonwealth. Or anywhere else for that matter.

"Hey, MacCready!"

He barely heard her over the sound of the surf, and had to look around to find the source of her voice. He saw her leaning over the railing near the top of the lighthouse, waving at him. "Get up here, you've got to see this!"

He waved in return, tossed his cigarette into the water and stood to make the long, stomach curdling walk up the staircase leading to the top of the tower.

If he had to sit by the reeking ocean with cold feet and rad sickness for her, well... in the end, it was worth it.


End file.
